Ilya Birman Follow

Jul 29 3 min read

Stopwords in the user interface

The words that usually signal problems with the user
interface.

Main and secondary

Variants: regular, general, basic, advanced, extended, miscellaneous, more
Examples: main section, basic options, advanced plan, miscellaneous
settings

The line between primary and secondary is not defined. The user is
looking for a particular thing and has no idea whether its main or
advanced. More is usually a graveyard of elements that the designer
didnt find place for.

Useful
Variants: important, notable
Examples: useful hints, important information, notable changes

When you nominate some stu important, this means all the rest is
unimportant. Instead of stating the usefulness, explain the benefit:
How to start snowboarding.

Article
Variants: post, entry, publication
Examples: add entry, next post

These, again, name the type of the content. The words can be useful
among the editorial sta, but meaningless for the reader: there are no
newspapers with an articles section.

Catalogue
Variants: list, archive
Examples: shoes catalogue, news archive

Theres no need to signal that a list is following. Just put the list with
an informative heading: Shoes, News.

Click here
Variants: enter, select, go, follow, open, launch
Examples: click here to open, enter password, select country, follow the link

There is no need to explain how to use buttons, links, input fields and
other standard user interface elements. Links should just name the
places they lead to: iPhone 7 review. Form fields should just name the
content: Password, Country.

Form
Examples: application form, inquiry form

A form is a table of fields to fill. The word form just names a type of
screen, but the user already sees that its a form. Name it with the ben-
efit in mind: Job application: designer.

Required
Variants: necessary, must, please
Examples: required field, you must agree, please specify the phone number

The user doesnt care if a field is required. If the form doesnt work
without it, they will put in some garbage. Instead of demanding or beg-
ging, explain the benefit: We will call to coordinate delivery time.

Operation
Variants: process, transaction, request, step, state, module, function, data
Examples: process is not responding, bad request, step 5 of 12, module not
installed, wrong data format

These words are handy to describe how something works technically.

But there is no point in using them in the user interface: they just com-
plicate the matters for the user. Write as a human being: Spell check
available in paid version, Due to an error, the app needs to re-open.

Authorisation
Variants: authentication, authentification, identification, session, limit
Examples: please authorise, session timeout

Even programmers mix up the autho-whatever-s constantly. Use the

verbs to enter or to sign in, or, even better, name the thing thats in-
side: Shopping history.

Success
Example: operation completed successfully

If operation hasnt completed successfully, it hasnt completed, period.

Write whats been done: Money sent, Update installed.

If you know why a particular word from this list is not good, but in
your case it makes perfect sense, leave it.

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Originally published at ilyabirman.net.

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